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Nathaniel Bell

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Nathaniel Bell is a Los Angeles based writer and scholar whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Daily News, the Los Angeles Review of Books, LA Weekly, The Village Voice, and Film International. He wrote the chapter on Freaks (1932) for Scripts from the Crypt No. 12: Tod Browning's The Revolt of the Dead (BearManor) and contributed audio commentaries for the Blu-ray releases of Desire (1936), Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971), Ruby (1977), and Mata Hari (1985).

Reviews

Movies TV Shows
Bring Her Back (2025) 89% EDIT “The movie is simply mean and ugly. But in a fun way. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Jun 2, 2025 Full Review Henry Johnson (2025) 62% EDIT “All four original actors reprise their roles and there is an invisible intelligence, a discernible pattern, that keeps you glued to your seat.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice May 12, 2025 Full Review Elevation (2024) 55% EDIT “This brand of graceful machismo, in which tender moments are balanced with explosions of badass violence, is Mackie’s stock-in-trade, and he wields it nimbly.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Nov 13, 2024 Full Review Reagan (2024) 18% EDIT “The result is a political biopic with the heartbeat of a faith-based drama — earnest and aiming to inspire rather than provoke.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Sep 3, 2024 Full Review Green Border (2023) 94% EDIT “An urgent reminder that no matter where the borderlines are drawn, we are all responsible for each other. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Jun 21, 2024 Full Review Evil Does Not Exist (2023) 91% EDIT “One of the most exciting and original films to emerge so far this year — a human-size thriller whose ecological message isn’t touted like a protest sign but is rather written into every shot and every note. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice May 8, 2024 Full Review Drive-Away Dolls (2024) 64% EDIT “If the movie feels a bit more polished and polite than anything by Russ Meyer or Doris Wishman, it is still essentially a B-movie, unafraid of going for the lowbrow laugh. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Feb 23, 2024 Full Review Ordinary Angels (2024) 84% EDIT “The success of inspirational exercises like this one are largely contingent on the strength of the performances, and on that score, Ordinary Angels delivers. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Feb 23, 2024 Full Review Padre Pio (2022) 34% EDIT “Dedicated in the closing credits to the people of Ukraine, Padre Pio aims to restore a measure of faith, not in humanity, which is manifestly wicked, but in the person who suffered and died for all.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Jul 7, 2023 Full Review Master Gardener (2022) 71% EDIT “If the whole is less than the sum of its parts, Master Gardener remains watchable, thanks largely to the confident, spartan construction and strong performances. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice May 29, 2023 Full Review Women Talking (2022) 90% EDIT “Women Talking may be the most accurately titled film to be released this year. Written and directed by Sarah Polley from a novel by Miriam Toews, the movie is essentially a chamber piece that seems tailor-made for the stage.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Jan 3, 2023 Full Review Dead for a Dollar (2022) 53% EDIT “To make a film that espouses the timeworn virtues of a neglected American genre is one thing, but to offer it as a libation to one of its supreme stylists is quite another.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Dec 23, 2022 Full Review House of Darkness (2022) 60% EDIT “What pleasures House of Darkness provides in the way of patient, slow-burn suspense it lacks in thematic richness and surprise. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Dec 23, 2022 Full Review Fall (2022) 79% EDIT “But Fall’s main attraction, and the primary source of its visual pleasure, is the freestanding, red latticed tower itself, identified as the “B-67” and possibly inspired by the WHDH-TV tower in Massachusetts.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Dec 23, 2022 Full Review The Black Phone (2021) 81% EDIT “The Black Phone delivers its quota of thrills while establishing empathy for its bullied and battered youngsters. It’s horror with a heart.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Jun 24, 2022 Full Review Lux Æterna (2019) 64% EDIT “Noé may not understand God, Christianity, women, or Dreyer, but he’s clearly having lots of fun playing around with the symbols. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice May 28, 2022 Full Review Dual (2022) 72% EDIT “Creeping underneath the surface eccentricities are anxious, philosophically loaded questions about compassion., the opening scene is a duel between inconsequential characters is sufficiently violent in concept and execution to convey our fear of death. ” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Apr 25, 2022 Full Review Teacher (2019) 100% EDIT “Adam Dick wrote and directed this slow-burning low budget thriller.” – LA Weekly/Village Voice Mar 5, 2022 Full Review The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021) 93% EDIT “If Macbeth comes across as self-consciously arty and occasionally juiceless it is because it lacks the initiative to transform, rather than simply render, the material.” – L.A. Weekly Jan 22, 2022 Full Review Belfast (2021) 86% EDIT “What it finally comes down to is a simple story of a family whose peace and stability are threatened by forces outside their control, and whose survival depends on a love that transcends material circumstances.” – L.A. Weekly Dec 20, 2021 Full Review The Power of the Dog (2021) 94% EDIT “Jane Campion's first feature in 12 years, is well worth the wait. A creepingly sinister drama set in 1924, the film is an exceptionally well made yet conservatively restrained historical piece.” – L.A. Weekly Dec 20, 2021 Full Review The Hand of God (2021) 84% EDIT “Viewers who stick around until the end will be rewarded with a thoughtful coda that deftly summarizes the director's equivocal worldview.” – L.A. Weekly Dec 20, 2021 Full Review The Souvenir Part II (2021) 90% EDIT “Even so, taken as a single work, this film is a significant achievement, a true and affecting portrait of artistic self-discovery. Love, loss, pleasure, pain-it's all part of life, it's all a kind of art.” – L.A. Weekly Nov 4, 2021 Full Review Bergman Island (2021) 84% EDIT “Bergman Island acknowledges the spiritual maelstrom that Bergman weathered-and worked out so powerfully in his cinema-as evidence of a life well examined and truly lived. The island bears witness to this testament.” – L.A. Weekly Oct 25, 2021 Full Review Cry Macho (2021) 57% EDIT “Each new film could plausibly be his last, so it's good to see the star ease up on the self-critiquing torment of his earlier pictures, electing to end not in a gun battle but in a slow dance.” – L.A. Weekly Sep 26, 2021 Full Review
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